1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: Winner of the Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners Award 2023

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James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare's staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599: sending off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathering an Armada threat from Spain, gambling in a fledgling East India Company, and waiting to see who would succeed their ageing and childless Queen.

T]he application of Shapiro’s detective skills to the piles of pseudo-scholarship from the past century and a half yields valuable results. Read these as well and make up your own mind - they certainly give another fascinating alternative perspective to the familiar plays (especially Hamlet, that features prominently in Shapiro's book). Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen. Just the previous September, Ben Jonson had quarreled with Gabriel Spencer, a rising star (and shareholder) in the Admiral's Men, and in the ensuing duel near the Curtain killed him.Shapiro gives us a Shakespeare who chronicles his age, in a biographical form that speaks clearly to our own. The palace was a far cry from anything he had ever experienced in his native Stratford-upon-Avon, which extant wills and town records portray as a drab backwater, devoid of high culture. Os capítulos sobre "Como Gostais" e "Hamlet" revertem para análises textuais mais convencionais, interligados com especulações biográficas e digressões; por exemplo, a viagem de Rosalinda a Arden pode ter sido inspirada em sua viagem anual de Londres a Stratford para visitar esposa e filhas. Shapiro goes into Shakespeare’s new uncharted territory as to just how far he might assuage the populace with vibrant new thoughts regarding their position relative to rich courtiers and other patrons of the court.

By far the most fascinating and convincing relationship between a play and contemporary events concerns Henry V. Shapiro places Shakespeare's timeless genius back in its original context and reminds us of the influences that shaped the man. Vivid medieval paintings of the Passion and the Last Judgment had once decorated the walls of Stratford's church, but they had been whitewashed by Protestant reformers shortly before Shakespeare was born. His earlier books have received international acclaim, including 1606: The Year of Lear, which won the James Tait Black Prize; 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize; and Shakespeare in a Divided America, selected as one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times.During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet ; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. And then Shapiro shows how these public concerns were reflected in the plays that Shakespeare wrote that year. It's good in the overall picture of England and Europe, but also in the details - delicious the comment on how many words Shakespeare used for the first time in Hamlet - six hundred. Shapiro’s book is… authoritative, lucid and devastatingly funny, and its brief concluding statement of the case for Shakespeare is masterly.

Shapiro argues that these plays were a turning point in his career – as he moved away from popular and formulaic plays to a more demanding spectacle. This has just been awarded Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners in a special announcement to mark the 25th anniversary of the prestigious nonfiction prize. Those approaching it for the first time found that "the head, face and nose appear so long and misformed that they do not seem to represent a human being. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item.

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare , by James Shapiro, is an intimate history of Shakespeare, following him through a single year that changed not only his fortunes but the course of literature. Elizabeth had come from Richmond Palace, where she had stayed but a month, having been at her palace at Nonsuch before that. He is the author of Rival Playwrights, Shakespeare and the Jews, and Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play.